


Deserve the Fair

by toujours_nigel



Category: Alexander Trilogy - Mary Renault
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-22
Updated: 2012-06-22
Packaged: 2017-11-08 07:58:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/440960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toujours_nigel/pseuds/toujours_nigel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hephaistion stayed on last. They talked too quietly for me to overhear. Then he went too, and Alexander came in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deserve the Fair

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the MRF Spring Jumble Sale, from a prompt posted at the mrfics community.

Ptolemy threw him a swift smile as the last supplicant stumbled grumbling from the tent and the guards presented arms with a clashing of swords. Now, after all the back and forth of formal rhetoric and royal decree, they'd a chance to get at the truth.  
  
Alexander stood a moment looking out, and spoke quietly to the pages before turning to them. “All Ptolemy's relatives I know. Hephaistion, your sisters have only sons, do they not?”   
  
“All three clamouring to come fight at your side,” Hephaistion allowed, and, because Alexander needed the laugh, added, “but my King, Myron has a daughter from his first marriage and my sister writes that she has Athena's mind wedded to Aphrodite's beauty; a girl who would grace the thrones of Pella and Persia alike; young enough to yet be malleable and old enough to perform all wifely duties with pleasure.” He ducked the wine-cup Alexander threw at his head, and straightened indignantly to catch his wrists. “Alexander!”   
  
“Enough of daughters and sisters and cousins and nieces,” Alexander declared, twisting out of his grip to throw himself on the couch by his side. “I will have no more of it, and certainly none from you.”   
  
Ptolemy, safe on his own couch from the temptations of stroking the curls off Alexander's brow and promising to trade silence for kisses and less than susceptible to such temptations in any case, cleared his throat and said, “You can hardly blame them for wanting a Macedonian bride for you.”   
  
“That would be to set a foreign king above my Persians for all time. A Persian queen will do much to ease their hearts, and will give me an heir sprung from two peoples to rule an empire of two peoples.” He raised his head to speak, slanting his eyes at Ptolemy. “That is the only way.”   
  
“Why not one of Darius' daughters, then, if you must unite the people?”   
  
“No daughter of his could have spirit,” Alexander said, “And even the elder cannot be above fourteen, hardly an age for marriage.”   
  
Ptolemy frowned at that for a moment. “Marry her and leave her where she is, then. You needn't bed with her till she's of an age to suit your pleasure. It'd be a more acceptable marriage in Greek eyes, and for the Persians.”   
  
Hephaistion signalled him quiet with some urgency, but already Alexander was stiffening in the circle of his arm, straightening to look at Ptolemy. “I will marry Roxane, and now. No delays, no change in brides.”   
  
Ptolemy sighed, and set his cup upon the carved table. “Then I must be up with the sun to speak to our friends. I give you good night, both.” Alexander looked as though he would stop him, and then inclined his head in assent. They were quiet till his footsteps had melted into the general noise of the camp, rumbling still with news of the feast as the pages spoke to their friends—the ones outside Alexander's tent would have the best stories, come morning.   
  
  
  
Hephaistion wished, a little desperately, that he had not gone. He had always played the friend in these situations, and to have the chance to play the spurned lover helped nothing—years ago, with Barsine, he had already smiled and wished Alexander luck. He only left his arm where it lay around Alexander, and said, “But why this girl? And none of your impassioned speeches, my love.”   
  
“She burns like a banked fire,” Alexander said, “and she dances like a maenad before the god, and she is lovelier than any woman I have met.”   
  
At once there seemed never to have been a moment when he hadn't known this; he looked back with wonder at the times when he had waited, in so much doubt and uncertainty, for Alexander to make himself known. How should he confess what he himself had not discovered? All yesterday evening Hephaistion had been, consciously and subconsciously, using his eyes, and noticing little things; and now, when he looked at Alexander, it seemed written all over him. Likely he barely understood it himself, being in love usually of a nature slow to ignite, and needed his heart spoken to him by one who knew it well.   
  
He said, “You love her,” and raised his free hand to touch the curls falling about Alexander's face. “You loved her the moment she raised her eyes to meet yours in the dance.”   
  
Alexander, his grey eyes staring, answered, “'Tion, she sets my heart on fire.” He sounded as though the confession had been torn from him, a matter solely of pain.   
  
“Then of course you must marry her,” he said, and helplessly tightened his hands on Alexander, shaking him gently. “And soon, even if I have to shut half our friends within her father's dungeons.”   
  
“I trust it will not come to that,” Alexander laughed, “but I do not think I would care overmuch.” He kissed the hand that had rested on his hair, still smiling eagerly. “She is the loveliest woman in all Asia.”   
  
“A match the gods will smile on,” Hephaistion said, and thought he would kiss Alexander in a moment, set hands on him and hold him close till morning.    
  
Something of his desire must have shone on his face even in lamplight. Alexander kissed his hand again, said “Stay the night, my dear.” It was a tempting thought, to send him in the morning to ask Roxane's hand in marriage with marks of love pressed into his skin. But there was the boy still waiting within, and there had been enough shouting in the beginning that he must have heard even without trying. Not the night to turn Bagoas out of doors.   
  
He took the offered kiss, and signed refusal with their lips yet touching. “I've to do the rounds with Ptolemy myself. Do not pace the night away, my love.”   
  
  
  
Ptolemy had waited for him between their tents, and came up from the watch-fires with a question in his eyes.   
  
Hephaistion said, “It is for love,” and stood quiet while Ptolemy peered at him.   
  
At length he said, “Come sit with us a moment. I'll have no peace till Thais knows all the story, and you had best gain practice in telling it.”   
  
It was a thought to hold in his mind, to enter Ptolemy's tent and let Thais fuss over him, familiar as a sister-in-law and far freer with her friendship than any of their friends' wives could hope to be. Roxane herself her would never see after the wedding save as a veiled figure in the distance, indistinguishable from the rest of the royal harem. He said, “You need the practice as much as I,” and went his way without waiting for a response.   
  
His own tent was dim, with a single lamp burning in its brass holder above the bed, letting light slip loose to catch on the rough furs below. Demos he had dismissed after supper, to find what warmth he could in the servants' tents, but the lad had remembered to slip a heated brick beneath the covers, and had poured out a jug of water still gently steaming beneath the covering cloth.   
  
In the morning he would have to begin to persuade people that Alexander marrying a girl from the Sogdian mountains served any interest greater than his own lust. And by now, he thought between wakefulness and sleep, by now Bagoas knew and was working to keep a smile on his beautiful face. Poor, luckless child.


End file.
